Space and Science BS Thread

Kind of old but I never knew about this

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/314640

 

Mind blower....

The universe is just over 14 billion years old.

The horizon of all visible electromagnetic radiation is therefore 14 billion light years away.
We are not at the center of where the big bang took place, but have radiated outward from it, so our sphere of what we can see is offset by the distance that we have traveled in the last 14 billion years.

Of course, thwarting our visibility in the direction that we are moving is the fact that we are on the trailing edge of our own galaxy, so to see "ahead" we have to peer through the densest parts of near space.


How far "ahead" can we see?
I'm assuming that we can see behind us through the location of the BB... and we have a good idea of what is beyond our visual horizon in that direction... but what about ahead of us?
If we are able to confirm that we can see 14 billion light years or more ahead, then that would be supportive that the initial expansion rate of the universe was faster than light.

And speaking of the other side of the galaxy.... What the hell is "The Great Attractor" that is pulling on all of the galaxies in our neighborhood?
That's got to be a pretty massive "thing" to have that kind of influence.

 

I don't think the expansion could be faster than light because we can see "back in time" by looking really far into space.

When we see light from our sun it took 8 minutes to reach us. When we stretch this out to the middle of the Milky Way which is about 26000 light years away when we look at it we see what it looked like 26000 years ago.

If we take it even farther using for example the Hubble Deep Field image http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAVjF_7ensg (Amazing to watch btw blows my mind that in each of those galaxies there are billions of billions of stars and it just keep going and going)
We are looking million of years ago into the past because that's how long it takes for the light to reach us. I can't remember the exact source but there are images of extremely early stages of galaxies from shortly (relatively) after the big bang.

Apparently the universe is shaped like a donut too making everything 1000x more confusing.

 

the idea behind the inflation theory is that in that trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the BB expansion inflated faster than the speed of light, causing gravity to have to "catch up", if I'm understanding it correctly

and that the "B-mode" waves we detected were from the "Catching up" phase of gravity

 

Actually it can move faster than the speed of light

 

Space Selfie

 

Interesting I heard about this but then I heard that there were problems with how they measured something and never heard about the retesting.


I wonder how that will change our understanding of light

 

the bmode readings were confirmed to 5 sigma, they're just waiting for confirmation from the planck satellite IIRC

 

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/glimpse360/wwt

Enjoy.

 

What I was getting at is that if we can see for 14 billion light years in all directions, we shouldn't be able to, because the universe should not exist more than 14 billion light years from the center of the event, and that assumes that expansion has always been AT the speed of light.
We should be able to see 14 billion light years in the direction of the event (and if expansion is slower than light, then we would see through it, as it appeared, oh, say, 10 billion years ago and then see another 4 billion light years beyond it.)

But what I'm saying is:

|------the universe-----BB------------us--------|

We should/could be able to see 14 billion light years behind us, because it is reasonable to believe that the far perimeter of the universe is 14 billion or more LY distant. But in the direction we are moving, assuming expansion moves AT the SoL, our nearest perimeter can not be more than 14 billion LY minus our distance from the location of the BB.

 

Anyone here members of any science/space/physics forums?

 

No....

I don't particularly like being the smartest guy in the room, but I hate to be one of the dumbest

 

I love the video with all the galaxys in it.

 

Lol, thats the best way to learn tho.. surround yourself with smarter people and soak in the knowledge

 

Ya, and I do that all the time.

But it's not very effective when you are viewed as the guy drooling in the corner like I would be in the cafeteria at Fermi.

 

sub.

 

Just dont talk? lol

 

Went to dinner with my bro and his old boss the other week
Old boss brings a couple other friends and their wives

So dinner with the bro, head of research at a local geothermal energy project, research molecular bioscience/biotechnology professors

Just sitting there listening to them argue about ways to improve the efficiency of rust attractors in salt tanks, I felt like I needed a napkin to stop the tard drool. Lol

 

Hahaha. Thats pretty awesome tho. Unfortunately for me right now all I get to do is listen to financial advisors and bank managers talk about bringing in another multi million dollar client. As awesome as that is its just not educationally stimulating my mind..

Hopefully that changes when I head back to school. Im gonna try to get in with the astronomy professors at my school.

 

Im currently reading Steven Hawkings A Brief History of Time and I have to say it just blows my mind.

Im only a couple chapters in but it is a great read